Grey days

It's getting to that time of the year when things are winding down.  In Melbourne, the slide into the summer holidays can be felt from the time between Cup Day and Remembrance Day.  The weather has turned, with daytime temperatures now reliably in the twenties.

The paradox of the slide into the holidays is that everything becomes more frenetic.  Social gatherings take on a determined air that they would not have had in mid-October.  The first Christmas events have taken place, while the festive bunting in many shops is beginning to look like a permanent fixture, having been strung up in late-September.  Various organizations I work for are beginning to look towards the final events for the year, with the beginning of discussions about how much leave to take in January.  The need to get business completed for the year drives the work-day just that bit harder.

I've been inhabiting a slightly liminal space for the last twelve months or so.  The fate of post-doctoral studies has rested on the assessment of grant applications, various articles and book chapters have yet to appear, all topped off by moving house a couple of months ago.  There have been other adjustments, like finally getting used to life without feline conversation, and starting back at weight training after a break.

Just recently, some doors that had been ajar have blown shut.  A job application for which I had some hopes of at least getting an interview was shunted into the never-never by yet another machine-generated email, many long months after the application went in.  Just today I finally received notification that my application for a research grant didn't make it through.

I've spent the last two years working in areas that make use of my abilities, but can be difficult to connect well with my gifts and callings.  I will never know whether the job or the research application would have provided scope to reconcile this gap in the immediate term, although one can always apply again for a grant, and another job is bound to come up sometime.

In the meantime it's back to plugging away at being a triangular peg in a square hole, hoping against hope that it will all fit together in the end.